To start the new year off well, we are offering all of our Amazon Kindle ebooks by Abbot George Burke on sale for only 99¢ until after January 14th.

This includes both of our published books in the “Awakening” Series, The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening and The Dhammapada for Awakening, as well as May a Christian Believe in Reincarnation? and A Brief Sanskrit Glossary.

To purchase and download any of these titles, simply click the links below to the ebooks you desire.

As a teaser, here is a section from The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening:

Children of the Light

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day (I Thessalonians 5:5).

Jesus said, If they say to you, “Where did you come from?” say to them, “We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.” If they say to you, “Is it you?,” say, “We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.” If they ask you, “What is the sign of your father in you?,” say to them, “It is movement and repose.” (Gospel of Thomas 50)

If they say to you, “Where did you come from?” say to them, “We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.” First let us note what Jesus does not tell us to say. He does not tell us to say that we are creations of God or servants or God–and certainly not sinners.

Our origin reveals our nature. Since we came from the Light, we are ourselves that Light. Quite some years ago a healing group met each week in our monastery. At the beginning of each session we would say some prayers, always ending with: “Christ is the Light; the Light is Christ. I am that Christ; I am that Light.” This is the truth of our real, essential nature. It is not the truth of our temporal, ever-changing nature that is involved in evolution. But it is necessary for us to stop in our evolution dance occasionally and remember who and what we really are.

What articles on OCOY.org did you read and share the most this year? What were the blog posts that you found the most useful? Which podcasts were the most informative and were downloaded the most often?

Below you will find the top ten articles, blog posts, and podcasts for 2015. Did you miss any of them? Click each link to explore our most popular content and improve your inner and outer spiritual life.

A Special Request:

Have you read any of our books, whether printed, as a digital download, or on our website? (All our printed books are also available for reading for free on our website.) All book publishers greatly value hearing feedback from their readers, and we would love to read your reviews on our books.

We would greatly appreciate if you would leave a review (or reviews) of the books which Abbot George has written on Amazon.com. You can visit these pages and add your reviews:

Here are answers to some of the spiritual questions which readers have asked us. If you have questions on spiritual life, we invite you to explore our site to increase your knowledge, or use our contact form here.

Q: If I am not mistaken, the Bhagavad Gita says that to attain spiritual awakening it is mandatory to have a guru or spiritual master.…

No; that is the usual interpretation, but it is incorrect. Krishna (Vyasa) tell us to seek out worthy teachers–acharyas. This is not same as the mythological guru figures of degenerate Hinduism. That is why the great master Swami Sivananda often said: “I abhor gurudom.” [For more information, read Gurus: Yes or No?]

Is initiation necessary in effort to search for spiritual awakening?

Definitely not. Spiritual awakening arises from within the individual when a certain level of evolution is reached. This is why Buddha is referred to as Self-Awakened. The same to true of all of us. [See God as the Guru]

There are a number of religious scriptures in the world. But some of them are in contradiction to one another. If these are all really divine revelations from God why then do different religions war with one another?

Scriptures are not divine revelations directly from God. Those that claim to be so are false and should be ignored. Rather, scriptures record the insights of those who have gained some experience of spiritual realities. The limitations of those authors naturally limit what they write. Their own understanding of their experiences may also be limited or even mistaken.

That is why the Bhagavad Gita urges us to seek direct spiritual experience for ourselves and go beyond dependence on books and teachers. This is why the Gita tells us to become yogis. Without yoga there is not hope of full spiritual understanding, much less enlightenment. [Read Perspective on Scriptures for more on this.]

Within Hindu religion ritual animal sacrifices is still being practiced in some parts of India, Nepal and Bali which quite contradict the teaching of ahimsa. How can we explain this?

Contemporary religion in India is often a mishmash of the most sublime truths and the most profound ignorance and superstition. Like the ant we must take the sugar and leave aside the sand.

Many spiritual associations and ashrams follow the pure traditions of India’s enlightened sages, and these should be sought out. Again: it is not philosophy we need, but our own inner experience through personal yoga practice.

When the Self leaves the body at the time of death, who carries the memory of the karma, which is going to be the foundation for the next reincarnation?

Karma exists as energy impulses, waves or whorls in the astral and causal levels of the subtle mind body. They depart the present body, remain for a while in the subtle worlds, then create the next body, enter into it and manifest through it.

What is the best time to meditate?

Whenever you can and do meditate. However, it is my experience that the Brahmamuhurta, around 4:00 a.m. is the best because the mind is calmest then. Here we meditate from 4 to 7 each morning and prefer that. Some people find they meditate best in the evening, so it is really an individual matter.

I would like to advise you to meditate for at least three hours in a single session whenever you can manage. Once you can sit for three hours you can sit for much longer. [See also Three Useful Meditation Tips]

The day our Original Christianity and Original Yoga website was launched we received an irate communication from one of those Western “Hindus” that believe they are more truly Hindu if they hate other religions–especially Christianity–and deny that Jesus ever existed. This prompted us to post one of the best received articles ever published on our Blog.

Jesus lived most of his life in India before becoming a missionary-martyr of Eternal Truth (Sanatana Dharma) in the West. This booklet presents the full story, including the historical texts about His life in India, and the inevitable conclusions that must be drawn about The Real Jesus and His Real Teachings.

You can indeed reap a lot of benefits by being a vegetarian and people have become more aware of the health benefits of being a vegetarian. Animal rights issues is only one of the reasons why people decide to go on a vegetarian diet. People are beginning to care more about the environment. However, the main reason why many people go on vegetarian diet is because of health benefits.

The answer is yes! That is the answer given in the Bible and the writings of Christian and Jewish theologians–many of them ancient authorities–as well as saints. The facts can be denied, but they can’t be changed. A well researched and popular article.

We also want to let you know about our video channels, where we have uploaded videos from our travels, and hope to add more useful videos in the future. Visit our YouTube and Vimeo pages.

As always, we hope you will share these articles with your friends by email and social media. We wish you the best for the coming New Year.

What pages are the most read on OCOY.org and the Light of the Spirit Blog? Read on, and explore more besides. There are hundreds of blog posts, as well as ebooks and more. And with spiritual writings, they never get out-of-date or loose their value:

You cannot lessen the effect of yoga, but you can certainly lessen or even prevent your responsiveness to it and the effect it will have on you. That is why it is so important that you read a book of necessary practical advice called How to be a Yogi: Practical Advice to Serious Yogis. There the Yoga Life is explained without which the practice of yoga will be of little significant effect. A few things that follow are from that book, but only a very few.

The bodies, physical, astral, and causal, are the vehicles through which the individual evolves during the span of life on earth, and must be taken into serious account by the yogi who will discover that they can exert a powerful, controlling effect on the mind. If wax and clay are cold they cannot be molded, nor will they take any impression. If molasses is cold it will hardly pour. It is all a matter of responsiveness. Only when warm are these substances malleable. In the same way, unless our inner and outer bodies are made responsive or reactive to the yogic process we will miss many of the beneficial effects. Hence we should do everything we can to increase our response levels, to ensure that our physical and psychic bodies are moving at the highest possible rate of vibration.

Diet and Yoga

A fundamental key to this is diet. For just as the physical substance of the food becomes assimilated into our physical body, the subtler energies become united to our inner levels, including our mind. The observant meditator will discover that the diet of the physical body is also the diet of the mind, that whatever is eaten physically will have an effect mentally. Here are some statements about the nature and effect of food that are found in the basic texts of India, the upanishads.

Ascetic discipline (tapasya) and prayer (mantra) are essential to religion, and here we see that the food we eat is their basis. And obviously the kind of food we eat will determine the quality of our discipline and prayer.

“By food, indeed, do all the breaths [pranas, life forces] become great” (Taittiriya Upanishad 1.5.4).

“From food, verily, are produced all creatures–whatsoever dwell on earth. By food alone, furthermore, do they live.…From food all creatures are born: by food, when born, they grow.…Verily, different from this, which consists of the essence of food, but within it, is another self, which consists of the vital breath [prana]. By this the former is filled. This too has the shape of a man. Like the human shape of the former is the human shape of the latter” (Taittiriya Upanishad 2.2.1).

The spiritual, astral body is drawn exclusively from food, so diet is crucial in spiritual development.

“Food when eaten becomes threefold. What is coarsest in it becomes faeces, what is medium becomes flesh and what is subtlest becomes mind. Water when drunk becomes threefold. What is coarsest in it becomes urine, what is medium becomes blood and what is subtlest becomes prana.…The mind, my dear, consists of food, [and] the prana of water…” (Chandogya Upanishad 6.5.1, 2, 4).

“That, my dear, which is the subtlest part of curds rises, when they are churned and becomes butter. In the same manner, my dear, that which is the subtlest part of the food that is eaten rises and becomes mind. The subtlest part of the water that is drunk rises and becomes prana. Thus, my dear, the mind consists of food, [and] the prana consists of water” (Chandogya Upanishad 6.6.1-3,5; the same is confirmed in 6.7.1-6).

“Now is described the discipline for inner purification by which self-knowledge is attained: When the food is pure, the mind becomes pure. When the mind is pure the memory [smriti–memory of our eternal spirit-Self] becomes firm. When the memory is firm all ties are loosened” (Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2).

“In the body there are nerves [nadis] called hita, which are placed in the heart. Through these the essence of our food passes as it moves on. Therefore the subtle body receives finer food than the gross body” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.2.3).

Both meditation and diet refine the inner senses so we can produce and perceive the subtle changes that occur during meditation.

Negative effects of meat eating

Meat is both heavy and toxic–especially from the chemicals spread throughout the tissues from the fear and anger of the animal when it was slaughtered. So our minds will also be heavy and toxic from eating meat as well as poisoned by the vibrations of anger and fear. And then there is the karma of killing sentient beings. Moreover, the instinctual and behavioral patterns of the animals will become our instinctual and behavioral impulses. Fruits, vegetables, and grains have no such obstructions.

Consequently, our mental energies will be light and malleable, responsive to our spiritual disciplines. Few things are more self-defeating than the eating of meat. From the yogic standpoint, the adoption of a vegetarian diet is a great spiritual boon. By “vegetarian” I mean abstention from meat, fish, and eggs or anything that contains them to any degree, including animal fats.

Other factors in health, physical and spiritual

Our general health also contributes to our proficiency in meditation, so a responsible yogi is very aware of what is beneficial and detrimental to health and orders his life accordingly, especially in eliminating completely all alcohol, nicotine, and mind-altering drugs whether legal or illegal. Caffeine, too, is wisely avoided, and so is sugar.

All of the above-mentioned substances–meat, fish, eggs, animal derivatives, alcohol, nicotine, and mind-altering drugs–deaden and coarsen the mind and body–and consequently the consciousness. Thus they prevent the necessary effects and experiences of subtle Breath Meditation, reducing it to an exercise in relaxation and calmness rather than the means of liberation–for which it is solely intended.

10 ways to improve your yoga practice

The sum of all this is that we must do more than meditate. We must live out our spiritual aspirations by so ordering our lives that we will most quickly advance toward the Goal. This is done by observing Yama and Niyama, often called the Ten Commandments of Yoga. They are:

Ahimsa: non-violence, non-injury, harmlessness;

Satya: truthfulness, honesty;

Asteya: non-stealing, honesty, non-misappropriativeness;

Brahmacharya: sexual continence in thought, word and deed as well as control of all the senses;

About OCOY.org

This site presents the path of meditation and practical spiritual life and is a service of Light of the Spirit Monastery (Atma Jyoti Ashram), which is located in Cedar Crest, New Mexico, USA.

Dedication of OCOY.org

This site is inspired by and dedicated to Paramhansa Yogananda, who introduced yoga meditation and the goal of self realization to the American people, and whose writings reveal the underlying unity of original Christianity and original Yoga.